As The Days Go By
by YukiAndZero
Summary: For someone like Stephanie, being sent to Camp Green Lake is a mere speck of difficulty on top of what she's already been through. This is a story about letting others in, rather than hiding from yourself. Better description inside. Rated T for language.


_**Story Title:** _As The Days Go By

_**Author:** yukiandzero_

_**Summary:** _If you were sent to Camp Green Lake, you would barely survive. But for someone like Stephanie, it's a mere speck of difficulty on top of what she's already been through. Determined to get through her 30 month sentence as fast as possible, she remains silent and works hard. Yet there's that one persistent boy who seems determined to crack her impenetrable shell.

_**Time & Setting:**_ OC [Stephanie] goes to camp instead of Stanley to replace Barfbag.

* * *

_**Chapter 1**_

_**Day 1**_

No.

No.

No.

No.

_NO! _

It wasn't meant to happen this way! She was supposed to go back to her warm home with her mother, happily ever after. She was supposed to be congratulated on the downfall of that monster, not prosecuted. She was _supposed _to finally get on with her life, and not have to worry about doing the wrong thing for fear of the punishment. Everything was supposed to be _better!_

So why were her wrists cuffed together, and why was her upper arm being gripped tightly by a guard, dragging her roughly towards the dusty white mini-van. The van that would take her to Camp Green Lake.

She dreaded that more than anything. From what she had heard, it was a Juvenile Detention facility located in the middle of nowhere, and she was the only girl who's case had fit the requirements that allowed her to go there rather than sit in a miserable and presumably damp cell for the years to come.

Apparently they usually didn't house girls, for they thought the work would be too strenuous. But obviously murder, self-defence or not, was deemed appropriate enough. At this thought, Stephanie scowled and spat roughly on the ground. Curse this world, she thought. It was filled with prejudicial views, proving that even some of the most intellectually recognised figures are ignorant.

As the guard pushed her in front of the steps to the van, she climbed them reluctantly. She sat herself at the very front, window side, and the guard seated himself opposite her, letting go of her arm. The cuffs were digging into her wrists painfully, but she had to put up with it as the guard was not going to let her bring her arms to the front.

She was going to miss her mom, she thought, as the engine started vibrating. Stephanie never really had any friends, though. She wasn't unkind, just blunt, which is never a good thing to be when making friends. If she thought someone had faults, she would point them out immediately. People eventually stopped approaching her, and if they did it was only to shower her in harsh words. Stephanie didn't take these words lightly, and sometimes resorted to violence. Eventually, despite her extreme intellect, she was expelled.

Everything that happened after that, Stephanie chose not to brood on.

She had heard that the trip to Camp Green Lake was around nine hours long, so after a couple hours of mindlessly watching the power lines rise and fall, she allowed her head to rest ungraciously on the window, bouncing up and down painfully. In time, her mind floated off into another world.

In this world, she was a spectator. A harsh spectator of her trial. For some reason, she was sitting in the jury stands.

Stephanie watched on as she saw herself yelling at her prosecutor, the judge yelling equally as loud for her to be quiet. Being in the jury, Stephanie formed quick opinions of herself, along with the other judges. What an insolent little brat! Who does she think she is, yelling at a lawyer? I'll bet all that crap about that murder were lies. It wasn't self defence, not with an attitude like that.

"Girlie." The Judge turned to her, not her other self. He yelled out Girlie repeatedly, shouting louder and louder until the scene before her blurred out.

She opened her eyes drearily, and felt a sharp pang in her neck. Rolling her head over her shoulders, she heard several satisfying clicks and sat up slowly. Her wrists were throbbing, but she ignored it and took in the surroundings outside the bus.

They had stopped out front of a large stretch of dry, red, land. Curiously enough, the land was _covered _in large holes. At the further stretches of the land, the holes were randomly placed and scattered about, but the holes closest to where Stephanie was standing were lined up in even-ish rows, with tyre tracks in between.

The guard motioned for her to follow him out of the bus, and surprisingly enough he didn't grab her arm.

"Don't worry, missy. There's no runnin' away from 'ere." The guard looked at Stephanie half amused half sympathetic, and Stephanie began wondering how he'd even managed such a diverse mix of expressions.

He motioned for her to follow him once more, and for some crazy reason, she did. A little ways ahead of them was a small wooden building. If Stephanie squinted, she could see several tents off past the building that they were now entering. She only had to squint because the exhausting sun was making it difficult to see much of anything.

The building was looking more shabby as they got further in, and eventually they stopped in front of a window. Behind it was a tall-ish man. His face was extremely sunburnt, and he donned a cowboy hat and sunglasses.

"Ah, finally! Long drive huh. 'Ere you go mate." The man grumbled, turning around and grabbing two cans of coke from a mini fridge at the back. Stephanie knew he wasn't planning on giving one to her, so she just moved her wrists around in her cuffs absent-mindedly.

"For you an' the bus driver." He stated, and finally regarded Stephanie for the first time. Scowling, he asked the guard for the keys to my cuffs. The guard handed them over and said goodbye to them both. Stephanie didn't reply, just leaned grumpily on the wall.

"Now come here, girlie. We need to inspect you, just in case you tried to sneak somthin' in, y'know."

She frowned and almost snapped at him for calling her girlie, but followed quietly instead.

"You'll address me as Mr. Sir at all times, you hear me?" Stephanie nodded briskly, causing some of her long black hair to fall into her face. Unfortunately, she couldn't brush it away so her mood got steadily worse.

He lead her out of the small building and into the land. They walked in between the rows of holes, past the tents and towards a red truck with a tank on the back. She clambered into the passenger seat when she was told to as best she could without using her hands. While outside was extremely humid and hot, the inside of the car felt like pure heat, smothering her completely. She felt beads of sweat form on her forehead, so she wiped them off on her shoulder.

The man started the engine to the car, and put his foot on the accelerator. They didn't drive for long, but Stephanie enjoyed the subtle breeze from the window. They passed groups of various people dressed in dusty orange jumpsuits who all looked towards the truck as it drove by.

They had been digging holes, she observed. She figured that was what she would be doing. Nothing she couldn't handle.

When the truck stopped, it was out the front of a medium sized shack. Out front of this shack had two trees with a hammock stretched between. They were certainly the only trees for a considerable distance, Stephanie noted dryly.

Once they were outside the door to the shack, Mr. _Sir_ knocked twice then stood back. Abruptly, someone yanked open the door. It was a tall woman, she had curly red hair that fell just past her shoulders, and her face was splattered with freckles.

She didn't look nice. In fact, she looked considerably mean, with the way she stared down at Stephanie and Mr. Sir.

"Come, girl." She said in a dangerously soft voice. Stephanie stepped forward into the shack as Mr. Sir handed over the cuff keys and a clipboard to the red-haired lady.

The door was shut behind her, and Stephanie felt an irrational burst of fear overcome her, but she quickly shook it off.

The lady lead her to the back of the shack and into a room. Spinning her around roughly, she unlocked the cuffs. Stephanie brought her sore arms around to the front slowly, and moving them just hurt. Her wrists had nasty red gashes on them, dried blood to add to the mixture.

"Take your clothes of," she looked down at the clipboard, then back up to Stephanie, "Stephanie."

Stephanie stared at her incredulously. "You want me to _take off my clothes, _in _front _of _you?_" Came her reply. Bad move. The lady slapped her hard across the face. Now, normally Stephanie wouldn't stand for something like that, but when the lady pulled out a small pistol from her belt, Stephanie stiffened and began to pull off her black shirt, despite how much it hurt her wrists and stiff arms.

Despite the relief, being in only her underwear, felt against the heat, she still felt violated.

"Hmpf." The lady declared after looking Stephanie over thoroughly. She left the room for a split second, then came back with something orange in her hands. Stephanie figured it was a jumpsuit that the other boys were wearing.

"You have two sets of these, and the laundry is done every three days. Breakfast is at 4:30 and you begin digging immediately after. Your hole must be five foot deep and five food wide each direction. Your shovel is your ruler. There are six tents, labelled A-F. The F tent if for the supervisors only. Each tent has a supervisor. Luckily for you, the only free space is in tent D, and your supervisor is Mr. Pendanski. I am the camp Warden and if you find anything during your digging report to me immediately. Don't expect to be treated any better because you're a girl, but don't expect to be treated the same. "

It took Stephanie a moment to take in all the new information, but she nodded and grabbed the jumpsuit. She put the clothes on quickly but didn't zip up the upper half, but tied around her waist revealing the orange T-shirt she was told to wear underneath. The Warden cuffed her again, and led her back outside. There was a different man in drivers side of the truck now, and Stephanie once again climbed into the passengers seat. Her key was handed over once again and she wondered why they didn't just un-cuff her completely, considering they had made it perfectly clear there was no way for her to run away. From the looks of it, she'd die of dehydration before the camp even got out of sight.

The man that was now driving the truck back in the direction of the tents introduced himself as Mr. Pendanski. He was a relatively young man, with an almost bald head and scraggly beard.

They stopped just beside tent A. Mr. Pendanski helped Stephanie out of the passenger side and grabbed her upper arm the way the guard had done before. _Not again, _she groaned mentally, as they neared tent D. She wondered what the Warden had meant by 'luckily for you', but then decided not to think about it. She could handle whatever anyone threw at her, now.

Looking up at the sun, Stephanie judged it would be between 4 and 5 PM. Not that she had any experience when it came to sun-time-reading-whatever.

"I'm pretty sure some of the boys are back already, so you can introduce yourself to them. I'm afraid you'll have to wear your cuffs while in the tent for the first week, but after that your wrists are free!" Mr Pendanski exclaimed joyfully. Stephanie suppressed a scowl, and followed as he pulled back the tent flap. She seemed to be doing all too much following lately, she thought idly.

"Oh hey Mom." She heard a voice say. Who was Mom? Mr. _Pendanski? _

"New camper boys!" Mr. Pendanski announced happily. There was a collective chatter of excitement as he pushed Stephanie forward and clapped her hard on the back. She turned around and gave him the best scowl she could muster.

When the inhabitants of the tent saw her, everyone stopped talking. One of the boys, a dark skinned guy with thick black glasses, openly let his jaw drop. Stephanie had to suppress a laugh, and the only way to do that was scowl. Something she was very practiced at.

"A... a girl?" A boy with messy, dirty blonde hair was the first one to break the silence.

"No shit." She snapped back, getting steadily angry.

"Now now Alan, don't want to mess with her." Mr. Pendanski scolded, grinning.

Stephanie ignored him. "So where am I sleeping?" She asked, wanting to go to bed as soon as possible. "And how am I supposed to sleep with these things on anyway?" She rattled her cuffs.

The rest of the tent must've only just noticed them because she heard a couple stifled gasps. Stephanie was mildly confused. Looks like she was only one that had to be cuffed for their first week.

"Ah well Stephanie, I'm afraid that you'll have to live with that just for now, but you don't have to wear them while you're digging! And your bed is right there, beside Alan's."

"My name's not _Alan, _it's _Squid_." The boy corrected, an annoyed expression on his face.

"Alright Alan, anyway, this is Rex, Jose, Theodore-"

The boy with the glasses interrupted him, "X-ray, Magnet, Armpit, you mean, and that's Zigzag."

Stephanie raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. She was in a positively bad mood that not only would she have to live with these stupid cuffs, but also have to put up with this bunch of idiots. Looking over at her 'bed', she decided she really needed to sleep right now. Bugger dinner, she was too tired to care about much of anything right now.

"Well, I'll be heading off now. You guys know the drill, dinner in the Rec room at 6." He gave a pointed look to Stephanie, then ducked out under the tent flap.

She waited a few moments before muttering a lazy goodnight and walking over to her bed.

"Dude, you should have some dinner. You'll need it for tomorrow, the first hole's always the hardest." She turned around to see that it was the boy known as with the glasses again, X-ray, that had spoken.

"Had a large meal before." Stephanie lied, flopping down on her back, bending her knees and facing the bottom of the bunk above her. Her wrists hurt even more like this, but it didn't really matter to her.

A couple of the guys gave her dubious looks, then changed subject. Unfortunately, not off her.

"So, what'd you get in here for? Must be pretty serious, y'know. What with the cuffs 'n stuff."

Stephanie turned to glare at the person who spoke, noticing it was the one known as 'Armpit'. "I'm trying to sleep. Fuck off."

"It's only five."

She took a deep breath, "I'm only going to say this once. I _don't _want to be friends with you, I don't want to talk to you, and I quite frankly I don't even want to know you. So if you would be so kind as to shut up and let me sleep, I would appreciate it. Good. Night."

The guy who had spoken, Zigzag, looked around at the others with a furious look in his eyes. He seemed like he was about to say something in reply but the Squid guy told him to let it go, and shot Stephanie a patronising look. She ignored it and managed to roll over without hurting her wrists too much. Great, so she had to sleep next to him for the next... however long he had to go in this camp, because she doubted he was in as long as she was.

_**xxx**_

It didn't take her long to fall asleep, but when she did it brought her no rest. The colour of blood covered her dreams, endless screams filling the air, forcing her to wake up covered in sweat, panting heavily.

It was dark still, the silence broken only by her rapidly beating heart. She was sure it would wake everyone up, but the other campers were still fast asleep, their body's rising and falling with their calm breaths. Gulping, Stephanie took a deep breath and tried to steady her own breathing. There was a rustle of sheets next to her, causing her to momentarily panic until she noticed it was only Squid rolling over in his sleep.

She wanted to brush her hair away, which was sticking to her face uncomfortably, but she would have to wait till later to finally get the cuffs off. Hopefully her wrists and arms didn't hurt too much that she couldn't dig properly.

Lying back down on her side, she wondered how hard it would be to dig out there, in the hot sun. Would she be able to handle it? Probably. Stephanie felt like she could handle anything now. She was also lucky that she wasn't easily sunburnt with her heavily tanned skin. On this thought, her eyes fluttered shut once more.

_**xxx**_

"Up you get campers! Get your lazy ass out of bed, Theodore. Come on!"

Stephanie opened her eyes slowly just in time to see the body beside her roll of the bed with a thud. Suppressing a smirk, she shuffled off the bed herself and stood up drowsily. Leaning against the wall for support, she noticed Mr. Pendanski come over to her hurriedly.

"Go on, turn around. We need to get those cuffs off you quickly."

She did as she was told and heard the rattling of the metal, followed by a 'click', and then an immense weight was taken off her wrists. Bringing her arms around the front, they felt even stiffer and even more painful than before, having slept on top of them. Wincing, she inspected her wrists. The gashes had gotten deeper, and some of the blood wasn't even dry yet.

Sucking the pain up, she stretched her arms and followed the other guys out of the tent.

It was still dark, and the air was somewhat cool. Cool compared to yesterdays hot sun, anyhow.

She noticed that they were heading to what Mr. Pendanski had called the Rec room, which on the door had a wooden sign with 'WRECK ROOM' scratched into it.

Inside the room there was several objects of 'entertainment' at once side, and a bunch of tables in the other. At the back was a long table with trays of what must've been breakfast. Grimacing, Stephanie head over to it. Following the others lead, she grabbed a tray and some cutlery and watched with disgust as something soggy was dumped into one section, and a carton of orange juice in the other.

Most of the people from D tent were grouped on one table, but Stephanie decided to go sit by herself at the far end of the tables. Picking up her spoon, hesitantly dipped it in the sludge that was supposed to be cereal. After bringing it to her lips, she found that it actually wasn't that bad. It didn't take her long to down the orange juice, and place her tray in a tub with the others.

_**xxx**_

"Get to it! Grab a shovel and follow Mr. Sir." called out Mr. Pendanski to D tent once everyone had finished their breakfast. They all lined up in front of a shed with rows of shovels, Stephanie at the back. She was surprised to notice another small boy grouped with D tent that she hadn't seen yesterday line up in front of her.

When the line reached her, she grabbed one of the two remaining shovels and slugged it over her shoulders. The group walked for about ten minutes or so until Mr. Sir called for them to halt.

He went around the group, pointing out where people were to dig their holes, coming to Stephanie last again.

"Here you go, Girlie." He said, handing her an empty canteen. "This ain't no Girl Scout camp, remember that."

She raised an eyebrow, but otherwise ignored him and punctured the ground roughly with her shovel. The ground was harder than she expected, but she still managed to get a good hold and levered the dirt out, throwing it about six feet away so that it wouldn't get in the way of her hole digging. Crouching down, she laid her shovel down and marked the ends, the turned it the opposite direction and marked again, leaving her with the dimension for her 5 foot circle.

Jamming her shovel into the ground again, she dug out the dirt around the edges, working her way into the middle.

After time, the sun slowly rose out over the horizon, greeting the campers with an intense heat beaming down on their already sweating backs.

Stephanie had already dug about 2 feet of her hole, and noticed that no one else except the small boy had dug more than her. She knew that the reason why the girl and the small boy had dug the most over the considerably larger other boys was not because of strength, but strategy.

Her arms were aching like mad, though, and her soft hands were forming blisters already. Laying her shovel down, she sat on the edge of her hole and inspected her hands. It wasn't as bad as it felt, but one particularly large blister was forming on her left hand. Her T-shirt was sticking to her back uncomfortably and her hair was once again becoming a problem. What she would give for a hair tie. She had noticed that all of the other boys had some kind of item to protect them from the sun, but Stephanie had nothing. Her face and body was covered in dust, and sometimes it would get in her eyes painfully.

She stood up gingerly and brushed her hands on the lower part of her jumpsuit and picked her shovel back up. The sooner it was over, the sooner she could go to bed. More rest meant more strength and stamina for digging the next day.

Just as she plunged the shovel in again, she heard the sound of a car engine. Turning around to face the source of the noise, the truck that she had driven in yesterday, with the tank on the back, was heading their way. She heard the clang of shovels hitting the ground and watched as the other guys headed over to the truck. She did the same.

When the truck was fully stopped, all of the boys lined up. Stephanie noticed that it was in the same order they had lined up in for the shovels; X-ray, Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet and the small boy. She felt a surge of relief flood through her when she saw water flowing out of the tank and into X-ray's canteen.

As soon as her was filled, she took several large gulps. The water wasn't cold exactly, but she didn't care at all. Feeling somewhat refreshed, she headed back to her hole.

After a while, Stephanie thought she was going to faint. Her arms were aching worse than before, her wrists bleeding painfully from the force of pounding the hard ground with her shovel, and sweat was dripping down her face like she'd just had a shower. It kept on threatening too fall into her eyes, and every time she brushed it away, she got dust in her eyes.

Soon enough, she noticed the small boy spit into his hole and walk back in the direction of the camp. So he was finished. Standing her shovel up beside her, she realised she only had about half a foot to go. With a new found surge of energy, she rammed her shovel in and threw out large amounts of dirts, not caring to keep the sweat from her eyes any more.

Laying her shovel down on the bottom, a grin formed on her face when she realised that her hole was finished. Climbing out painfully, she brought herself to her feet, hung her shovel over her shoulder, and stalked off in the direction that the boy had gone. Turning around one last time, she noticed with smug satisfaction that Zigzag and Squid had gone over to her hole with disbelieving looks on their faces.

_**xxx**_

"The showers automatically turn off after four minutes. You'll get a bar of soap to use, and remember, the only temperature is _cold._" Explained Mr. Pendanski, grinning. Stephanie found herself getting steadily annoyed by him as she headed over to the showers, towel in hand.

Once there, she found a free stall and stepped inside, shutting the door-gate-thing behind her. Feeling uncomfortable about stripping off near so many guys, delinquents at that, she left her underwear on as she hit the switch to activate the times shower. The cold water wasn't so bad after the days work, and she applied a tiny bit of soap in the places she thought needed it most. Especially her face.

She had only just managed to get the suds off when the shower switched off with a clunk. Then she got nervous. From what she had seen before, everyone else was heading back to their tents and getting dressed there. She couldn't do that.

Then she heard the jeers outside of her stall from other campers wanting their own showers. Figuring that she couldn't care less if everyone at Camp Green Lake hated her, Stephanie dried herself off and shuffled into her 'clean' jumpsuit and shirt. Wrapping the towel around her head, she opened the door and ignored everyone outside. Luckily for them, they didn't say anything to her and let her head back to the tent.

One day down, eight hundred and ninety-nine to go.

_**xXx**_

**A/N: **I love Holes, I love Squid (I don't even know why, I just do), I love romance, and I love fanfiction. Product? A new fic. And this one isn't Harry Potter for once. Amazing, I know. Enjoy!

P.S. Reviews are much appreciated, and remain as one of my strongest sources for inspiration (:


End file.
